Official MLBlog of the Kansas City Royals front office.

Swanee's Trip to the All-Star Game Concludes

After fighting a dead phone, a late night and an early flight, Royals Vice President of Communications and Broadcasting Mike Swanson (Swanee) is back in Kansas City. And we’ll get to the pics he sent earlier today as soon as we can.

Swanee didn’t. He had to catch a flight back early yesterday morning. He wasn’t even able to catch up and think about sending Around the Horn his photos until today, when his phone was fully charged. Unfortunately, it died right before the game started or shortly there after. Swanee’s phone was useless well before he got back to his hotel in midtown Manhattan around 3 a.m.

But lucky for us, he had a seat worth remembering. He was in charge of providing players for FOX and ESPN Radio to interview.

Around the Horn isn’t sure, and Swanee didn’t say, but we’re pretty sure the knees, hands and hat in the foreground belong to Texas’ Michael Young (who provided the game winning RBI with his sac fly).

49 Hall of Famers scattered across the field as a part of the opening ceremonies. One famous Royal stood at third, standing next to Wade Boggs. You may have seen George Brett telling the AL All-Stars before the game not to try to be heroes but to be winners.

Of course, the home team is closest to first, so Swanee snapped this pic from the dugout.

Royals’ All Star- Joakim Soria stood along the first base line for the introductions. Soria was between the Angels’ Joe Saunders and Detroit’s Carlos Guillen.

Another sight Royals fans might be familiar with from the All-Star game, Yankee Stadium had a B2 Stealth Bomber flyover.

Swanee informed Around the Horn that it was the same crews that fly out of Whiteman Air Force Base near Knob Noster, Mo. It’s the same stealth crew that often fly over Kauffman Stadium on Opening Day and that flew over Bank One Ballpark in Arizona during Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, another game Swanee was at.

The B2 flyover was during the National Anthem, which was sung by Sheryl Crow.

Swanee’s spot in the dugout didn’t allow him to get very close and his camera phone could only zoom so far.

He did get a lot closer to a few other stars though, including Kenny Chesney (pictured at right). He said Kenny was in a conversation and Swanee ddin’t want to bother him, but he wanted to give us an idea of who turned out for the big game in the Big Apple.

With all the talk about saying goodbye to one of baseball’s great stadiums, Swanee thought it would be appropriate to include a picture of Babe Ruth’s plaque in Monument Park.

It was afterall the final All-Star game in the House that Ruth built.

Like we’ve said at the end of each post, Swanee, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy All-Star schedule to provide us with a chance to see some of the inner workings of how this whole thing went down. We know you’re still resting and recovering for the second half of the season. So enjoy.

Royals Director of Community Relations Ben Aken was also in New York for the game, as we mentioned. Ben snapped this photo of our All-Star Insider. That’s Swanee (on the right) with Minnesota Twins Director of Baseball Communications Mike Herman hanging out in the Yankees/American League dugout after the Red Carpet Show and before the pre-game festivities started.

Both Ben, Swanee and of course Joakim, thank you so much for representing the Royals with class, pride and style in the Big Apple. All three of you already have Around the Horn’s All-Star vote to go to St. Louis next year.

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